Author
Topic: KR Poems (Read 10031 times)

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

I was surprised to see that there was no thread devoted to KR's poetry! I had managed a half-good translation of his beautiful "Колокола", Bells, but have since lost it. If anybody with good Russian skills wants to try their genius at translating some of his poems, they can be found here: http://www.litera.ru/stixiya/authors/kr.html

Here is my rough translation of one poem to cheer us up in the middle of winter. I also Romanized it (NB scientific transliteration), so those not so familar with the Cyrillic alphabet better can read the original Russian and appreciate the rhymes. Feel feel to improve the translation!

I was surprised to see that there was no thread devoted to KR's poetry! I had managed a half-good translation of his beautiful "Колокола", Bells, but have since lost it. If anybody with good Russian skills wants to try their genius at translating some of his poems, they can be found here: http://www.litera.ru/stixiya/authors/kr.html

Poetry is such a difficult thing to translate. Even with my native Russian and more or less adequate English I probably shall never risk to translate poetry : )

Great poem! Have you translated others? That one was really beautiful.

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There is a clock that never strikes...There is a cathedral that goes down and a lake that goes up...There is a little carriage abandoned in the copse...There is a troupe of little actors in costume...And when you are hungry or thirsty, there is someone who drives you away.

Quite fitting and clairvoyant of KR, I must say. Unfortunately the perhaps most interesting verse, the second one, is also the one which is most problematic to translate. I can't quite figure out the syntactic connection between the first and second line, so native Russian speakers please help! Is the gentleness and sadness also hidden in her eyes?Also is it correct to translate "как" both as "like" and "as" in the third and fourth lines of that verse? It's a bit feministically charged as there is a difference between "tender and demure like a woman" and "as (a) woman, tender and demure"! :-)

That's sooo beautiful...I like how elegant the words used are. It's an interesting style.

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There is a clock that never strikes...There is a cathedral that goes down and a lake that goes up...There is a little carriage abandoned in the copse...There is a troupe of little actors in costume...And when you are hungry or thirsty, there is someone who drives you away.

Rśrik, not bad. For the person, for whom English and Russian are not native languages - even good!

I have a question to more trained experts of K.R. Does anybody know about his professional poetry translations to English? Are there any serious books about K.R. poetry in English in the U.S.A? In Britain?

I'm asking, because I have a tempting idea (thanks to Rśrik) about these translations. I love to write sometimes amateur poetry and to translate, just for myself (not on professional level). Then, if K.R. has no translations and publications, I have a challenge to try these translations and to raise my level.

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"I think that if Shakespeare lived in our times he would not be able to write. Many of his works are not welcome on stage nowadays: The Merchant of Venice – anti-Semitism, Othello – racism, The Taming of the Shrew – sexism, Romeo and Juliet - hideous heterosexual show..." - Vladimir Bukovsky.

Naslednik Norvezhskiy

Rśrik, not bad. For the person, for whom English and Russian are not native languages - even good!

Thanks! Though I hope everybody realizes that I used Google Translate and dictionaries. I can identify words and phrases in Russian, but I don't know the language.

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I'm asking, because I have a tempting idea (thanks to Rśrik) about these translations. I love to write sometimes amateur poetry and to translate, just for myself (not on professional level). Then, if K.R. has no translations and publications, I have a challenge to try these translations and to raise my level.

That would be great! Hope you post them here!

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I have a question to more trained experts of K.R. Does anybody know about his professional poetry translations to English? Are there any serious books about K.R. poetry in English in the U.S.A? In Britain?

I'm no expert, but I've never seen any. I think the reason is that KR actually wasn't such a great poet. Yes, a good rhymer or "rhyme smith" and we enjoy his poems because we know who he was and the people and places he wrote about, but his poetry is of course nothing like Pushkin and his likes. KR depends too much upon abstract words and ideas and nouns instead of verbs and partially therefore his poetry is lacking in striking and imaginative poetic images.

(Good poetry is nearly always concrete. I hope the creative people who write poems about the Romanovs in the Having Fun section will be inspired both by KR and his shortcomings. It's very tempting to just throw in a lot of abstract adjectives and nouns, when in fact the best poetry is very concrete and shows instead of telling: "Do you still play on the swing or has it already broken?" (which is melancholic in the context of captivity and Siberian exile) was the only lyrical line I remembered after having read the NAOTMAA fan poems and that line was written by one of the Grand Duchesses!)

Of course, KR's poems might be very linguistically creative to a Russian ear, but that I can't judge.

Thanks for the answer, Rśrik. I promise you, that I'll try to post here some of his best poems in the near future. The problem is that I'm not a personal fan of his poetry. But, anyway, I like to try.

By the way, of course he was not a great poet!;) He wrote in a typical later romanticism/classical Russian academical key (Pushkin, Lermontov, and so on...). Nothing from difficult for an unprepared ear/strong man like poetry: from my favourite greatest Russian poet Brodsky, to Blok, Mayakovsky, Mandelstam, and others.. Typical beautiful/"straight in rhythm" poetry for his times.

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"I think that if Shakespeare lived in our times he would not be able to write. Many of his works are not welcome on stage nowadays: The Merchant of Venice – anti-Semitism, Othello – racism, The Taming of the Shrew – sexism, Romeo and Juliet - hideous heterosexual show..." - Vladimir Bukovsky.

Here is the beautiful little K.R. poem, which I translated. It was rather hard to translate, because of the K.R's straight common academical style. But, anyway, I think that this is rather beautiful both in Russian and English. Of course I translated it not just as a "copy", but closer to original with some little changes. The original poem is the property of it's/their respective owners. This is only my free translation.

"To S. A. Philosofova.

Do you remember it? One time, in days gone by, We both together wandered to the pond,A goldfish played in water nearbyAnd water lilies were beautifully blow.We took a seat on bench just side by side,Distractedly watching with the tired look The playful distant flight of butterfly... Above us skys were turning into blue,And covering us with linden tint,With tangled net he drawnThe traceries in the sand; being smelling sweet,A bush of roses near us were opening just in a row... And how the warm and sunny day it was! Without words we just enjoyed the peace,But heart was even ached and almost lost,As like before impending grief.And being anticipated with the future sorrow Soul, timidly, was in a rush to life, To closeness of the separation followJust for a moment to delay it with it's arrive.

"I think that if Shakespeare lived in our times he would not be able to write. Many of his works are not welcome on stage nowadays: The Merchant of Venice – anti-Semitism, Othello – racism, The Taming of the Shrew – sexism, Romeo and Juliet - hideous heterosexual show..." - Vladimir Bukovsky.